Whatsoever You Do To The Least Of My Brethren

Weird title for a Buddhist Blog? Not really.

While I was responding to a post on Facebook, I was reminded of the words of a folk song we used to sing when I was still connected to a church. The lyrics said, ”Whatsoever you do for the least of my brethren, that you do unto me.” It is based on a quote attributed to Christ in the New Testament.  When I thought about it after I had written that response, it occurred to me that the quote beautifully expresses one of the main tenets of Buddhism: we are indeed all one and each of us has within us the Buddha nature. There is more than one religious scholar who has posited the suggestion that given where Christ lived, and how extensively he travelled, it is quite possible that during the period of his life which is unaccounted for, he came in contact with Buddhist thought that had already existed for 600 years. Regardless of whether or not that is so, many of the teachings of Buddha and of Christ are strikingly similar. There is an excellent book by the well-known Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, called Living Buddha, Living Christ that explores these similarities quite well.

I couldn’t help but notice that Christ does not say treating those in need compassionately is because of him or through him or in his name, but rather is in fact actually treating him that way. He is quite clearly stating that the divinity many believe to have resided in him exists in each and every one of us, and that in extending loving-kindness to the lowest elements of our society we are showing it to ourselves and to every other being because we are all one great inter-dependent entity.

There is a joke that goes, “What did Buddha say to the hot dog vender? Make me one with everything!” This is one of the most central but also most difficult tenets of Buddhism; there is no real self, we are all part and parcel of every living being and all of nature, even the earth itself.  On that basis, every act directed at another person is directed at ourselves and the universe that dwells within all of us. When asked what were the greatest laws, the second part of Christ’s reply was, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I believe that this statement relates directly to the one quoted above. I used to think it meant to love other people as much as you love yourself, but since I have embraced Buddhism, I interpret it to mean literally to love your neighbor AS yourself and yourself AS your neighbor. There is no difference…it is the same act. What is honored in that act is the shared humanity, or perhaps as my youngest would have it, the shared divinity, that links all living beings.

Ultimately, what Christ and Buddha both have tried to teach us is that when we look at that homeless person, or that mentally ill person, or photographs of suffering persons all over the world, we are looking at ourselves in our shared humanity. If I may parody another oft-stated maxim, “There, but for different circumstances I can’t control, go I.”

We are indeed our brothers’ and our sisters’ keepers because they are us and we are them. Knowing and embracing that  simple reality engenders neither pity nor revulsion, but true compassion, which, after all,  means, “to feel with.”